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2CD SET WAGNER WITHOUT WORDS CD2 1 Liebestod Richard Wagner/Franz Liszt [7.51] from Tristan and Isolde Scenes from Parsifal Richard Wagner/Llŷr Williams CD1 2 Transformation Music [8.35] 3 Parsifal and the Flower Maidens [6.22] 1 Entry of the Guests Richard Wagner/Franz Liszt [10.39] 4 Good Friday Music [6.25] from Tannhäuser 5 In das Album der Fürstin M. Richard Wagner [2.55] 2 Fantasy Richard Wagner [26.01] 6 Santo spirito cavaliere Richard Wagner/Franz Liszt [9.35] 3 Spinning Chorus Richard Wagner/Franz Liszt [6.30] from Rienzi from The Flying Dutchman 7 4 Sonata for the Book of Mrs. M. W. Richard Wagner [12.47] “Song without Words” Richard Wagner [1.50] from Albumblatt für Ernst Benedikt Kietz 8 Walhall Richard Wagner/Franz Liszt [5.47] from the Ring of the Nibelungen (Das Rheingold) 5 Elsa’s Bridal Procession Richard Wagner/Franz Liszt [9.07] from Lohengrin 9 Albumblatt for Mrs. Betty Schott Richard Wagner [4.29] 6 Zürich Waltzes Richard Wagner [1.09] 0 Prelude to The Meistersinger from Nürnberg Richard Wagner/Glenn Gould/Llŷr Williams [9.14] 7 Siegfried’s Rhine-Journey Richard Wagner/Glenn Gould/Llŷr Williams [13.22] CD 2 Total timings: [74.01] from Götterdämmerung CD 1 Total timings: [68.38] LLŶR WILLIAMS PIANO www.signumrecords.com ARTIST’S NOTE of the voice and the orchestra. One can hear It was my excellent producer, Judy Sherman, echoes of certain phrases from the operas in who finally persuaded me to transcribe My love affair with the music of Wagner began the Sonate für Mathilde Wesendonck. Although something from Parsifal, as this was the when at age 10 I was given the Solti recording the Fantasy in F# minor is a bit long-winded obvious missing link on the CD. Trying to of the Ring Cycle as a Christmas present. Shortly in places, the cyclical return of the sombre reduce Parsifal to twenty minutes seems a afterwards I was bashing through the major opening following the intervening movements daunting enough task, but a good way in music dramas at the piano, using vocal scores makes for a remarkably moving, pessimistic seemed to be the Act I “Transformation Music” acquired from our local library. conclusion. This is especially remarkable with its bells, as there is a whole history when one considers that it was written at of the piano being made to emulate bell By far the most frequently-played bit of Wagner the tender age of 19 and that Wagner is not sounds. Part of the “Flower Maidens” scene in piano recitals is Liszt’s transcription usually thought of as an early starter. from Act II and the “Good Friday Music” from of “Isolde’s Liebestod” from Tristan, a Act III are then included before the bells near-miraculous conjuring up of Wagner’s The later music dramas are not well-represented return at the end, reminding us that much of glowing orchestration with just ten fingers. in Liszt’s transcriptions with their increasing Wagner’s music is cyclical. The popularity of this piece, however, should density of orchestral polyphony evidently not blind us to the quality of some of his puzzling for him. Glenn Gould’s solution in © 2014, Llŷr Williams other realisations such as “Entry of the 1973 was to record the Meistersinger Prelude Guests” from Tannhäuser where Liszt gets to and “Siegfried’s Rhine Journey” from the heart of this particular operatic scene. Götterdämmerung with an overdubbed second piano part, thus giving an almost complete It was for a recital at London’s Kings Place realisation of all the orchestral voices on the to celebrate the bicentenary in 2013 that keyboard. In the Götterdämmerung, I have the Wagner scholar Barry Millington suggested taken the liberty of re- allocating some of that I should combine the Liszt transcriptions the material between the two pianos in with some original piano music by Wagner. I order to give an even more faithful account of have to confess that my initial reaction was what is going on, as well as interpolating a (as it is with many musicians) “Did he write section from the mountain-top duet. piano music?” However there is more than two hours’ worth of music, much of it suggestive © Benjamin Ealovega - 4 - - 5 - WAGNER WITHOUT WORDS Wagner’s earliest musical training was in fact Richard Wagner (1813-1883) as a pianist. While a schoolboy at Pastor Wetzel’s school at Possendorf, near Dresden, he The ring Widely associated as Richard Wagner is with received piano lessons from his Latin master, the grandiose and richly-textured orchestrations Humann. Wagner was impatient with the set After graduating with a first from Oxford, Llŷr applied for the repetiteur course of his music dramas (one can hardly listen five-finger exercises, preferring to spend time at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where I was then Principal. I should to the radio or watch television without playing the overture to Weber’s Freischütz and explain that a repetiteur is a highly specialised pianist who accompanies being assailed at some point by “Ride of the other such works by ear. In his late teens, he opera rehearsals; one must be able to play any score at sight, teach Valkyries”!), it is not often recalled that he studied composition with Christian Theodor sometimes illiterate singers their parts, be able to help them with several also wrote a number of substantial works Weinlig, the conductor of the Thomanerchor languages and shape their interpretation of particular roles. Applicants for for the piano. Indeed, so little-known are in Leipzig. Weinlig made the young Wagner the Academy course are asked to prepare a scene from a standard opera these today that one might be forgiven for study counterpoint, and almost certainly sonata and, at audition, play from the full score whilst singing the vocal parts at assuming that the piano was not his natural form as Wagner dedicated his first opus, a the same time. This can be a tricky business, and most applicants choose medium. However, when the French Symbolist four-movement Piano Sonata, to his teacher. something fairly uncomplicated, from Mozart, for instance. (Llŷr’s audition poet, Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, visited This was published in 1831, in the same year is now legendary, but I was actually there.) When we asked him what he had Wagner and his wife Cosima at Triebschen, when Wagner composed the Fantasy in F sharp prepared, he said The Ring. ‘Good heavens’, we exclaimed, ‘what passage?’ Switzerland where they were then living, the minor recorded here. ‘Whatever you’d like’, he replied. Accepting this brash challenge, I said, ‘OK, impression he carried away was quite different. let’s hear the beginning of Act 2 of Siegfried. Llŷr proceeded to play and sing According to Villiers, Wagner while seated at The original piano works all the different voice parts, without even looking at the score – beautifully. the piano became “superhuman”, and as the I doubt that even Daniel Barenboim could do that. Needless to say, Llŷr composer played and sang, the piano gained In Wagner’s Fantasy one can hear the influence became a mainstay of the Academy Opera Department for the next two years, a soul of its own and Wagner’s performance of Beethoven, in particular the brooding style learning skills which have stood him good stead as, for example, one of the would become so overpowering that his of such works as the Pathétique and other official accompanists of the Cardiff Singer of the World competition. listeners had to beg him to stop: “at the end of piano sonatas from the great composer’s two hours we are really ill. It’s no longer a piano, “middle period”. Wagner had a life-long As told by Sir Curtis Price or a voice, but a vision…” admiration of Beethoven, and became particularly noted for his interpretations as a conductor of Beethoven’s symphonies, most particularly the Fifth. - 6 - - 7 - The Fantasy approximately outlines a three- Wesendonk famously inspired Wagner to Vielliebchen-Walzer reads: “Dedicated to of which pride of place goes to those movement sonata work, each movement preceded break off his work on the epic Ring cycle to Marie of Dusseldorf by the best dancer in by Wagner’s staunch champion, the virtuoso and linked by dramatic recitative passages. create his opera Tristan und Isolde. Before Saxony, called Richard the Waltzmaker.” pianist-composer Franz Liszt. Llŷr Williams It opens with such a brooding, recitative-like composing that seminal masterpiece, Wagner has programmed several of the most section, which leads into an episode marked wrote several song settings of Wesendonk’s A little less frivolous is In das Album der attractive of these, which will be described Un poco lento. More dramatic recitative poetry, two of which he explicitly identified as Fürstin Metternich, written in 1861 for the here in order of their appearance. introduces a bridge passage, with a passing “studies” for Tristan. A year after they first wife of the Austrian ambassador in Paris as a resemblance to the famous Toccata attributed met in 1852, Wagner composed a one-movement thank you for her intervention that allowed the “Entry of the Guests” (Einzug der Gäste auf to Bach, which leads to an impetuous Sonata in her honour; this was his first performance of Tannhäuser at the Opéra to go der Wartburg) was originally the opening piece Allegro agitato. Another episode of recitative completed work since composing Lohengrin ahead on 13 March of that year. of Liszt’s Zwei Stücke aus ‘Tannhäuser’ und introduces a broad Adagio molto e cantabile, some six years earlier, and was written some ‘Lohengrin’, first published in 1853.

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